


Washed Away

by RectifiedPear



Category: The Lion King (1994)
Genre: Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 07:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17679332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RectifiedPear/pseuds/RectifiedPear
Summary: Either this will have many chapters, some of varying length, or it'll be a mostly oneshot. I'm leaning towards multi-chapter.I've had this idea in my mind and written it many ways. I decided to write a fresh one because the old ones are from years ago.More people are fond of Zira living, I'm not so keen on it. A fall from that height into water is harder to survive than being buried alive under rocks, logs, etc. Not to mention lions are crap at telling dead or alive. Most of them just took Nuka passing out as death. When the water came and moved the logs, he could have been alive. Possibly carried away.Also, I loathe his voice actor, so Nuka's not speaking in the voice he once had, he's hoarse and different sounding. Just to make it more pleasant for other people who know about that terrible situation and dislike his VA.





	Washed Away

A hot glare from the sun beat down upon the lands, the rains had come, and then they had gone. It was muddy, and soon, it was dry, the ground cracked beneath shaking paws as the lion rose, body bruised and sore. His eyes strained to be open, to stay open. Where was he? An ache to his temple made thinking hard.

Itches creeped along his shoulders, then up to his neck. With a grunt, he scratched his mane and shook free small bugs. They laid upon the cracked earth in confusion. Then made way back to him. “Oh no you don't.” He rasped, crushing them beneath his feet with a twist of his paw. “Stupid termites.” 

He spared a look upward. “Stupid heat. The Outlands are always so hot.”

Taking in his surroundings, he realized this was not the Outlands. Or if it was, it was not a part he knew. He turned on his haunches, gaze going everywhere. Where was he? The arc of Pride Rock did not jut from the horizon, nor the rise of the termite mounds. He felt his confusion deepen.

How had he gotten here? 

His back and legs were an aching mess, like he'd fallen from a mound and hit ground. His head and shoulders tingled and ached in their own way, as if one had been smashed to a rock and his arms slept upon too long. 

This was not home, or any form of home he had known. The Pridelands, the Outlands, the place where the hyenas once were before they too left, this was none of that. Trying to inhale through his nose deeply, he cannot smell anything to remind him of home. The rains must have washed it all away. Surely if he'd come out here, a path of prints would take him back. He seeks for these, returning where he woke. There's nothing there besides wooden splinters and a long drag mark.

As if he was pushed onto the land from the water not far.

He looked down into it. The water was low, much lower than the edge. How had he washed up here when it was so low?

 _What **do** I know?_ He asked himself, tiring of thinking so hard when his head felt split open. His paws touched the tender spot, and found no blood, simply a tender lump upon his skull. His legs are sore to move, to lick, to touch. He has no idea how he got here.

He repeats his thought.

_My name is Nuka. Scar is my father. Zira is my mother. Simba is the enem-_

“Simba!” 

He exclaims, bouncing to his feet and regretting the action.

“He was here! Wait! No, he was there! There in the gorge and – and mother, and KOVU!” His claws tremble into the earth, wiggling little furrows. “Kovu, that traitor! He –“ He did something. Nuka couldn't remember what. It was a full blank. “KOVU! SIMBA!”

Nuka turns around and around, chasing his tail to bite the termites upon his hip. Fleas bouncing along haunches as he chews through his fur. “Damn them, damn them... they did something... MOTHER!” He has no idea how much time has passed. He rises to his feet and takes a few leaps and bounds. Running in all directions, he seeks out something he knows. The places he lit on fire. Pride Rock's peak. The sand and barrenness of the Outlands. 

Rocks. Rocks. Trees. More trees. 

Panting he gives into exhaustion and drinks from the water he comes upon. It's not where he started, but it is a watering hole. 

A lone pair of eyes meet his, a hippo. He backs away from the water after quenching his thirst. Ever the coward, he hunkers down and shakes. It stares upon Nuka, then flicks its ears and turns away.

“Wait. WAIT!”

He splashes water with his paws, scrabbling into mud. “Where! Where are – Pridelands. Where are the Pridelands?!”

The mouth beneath the water doesn't move, the eyes roll in their head. As if he's asked a stupid question. This is exactly why Scar was always right about other animals. Why lions were superior, just as his mother had always told him. It wasn't going to answer. He did not dare draw closer. His mother had told tales of what a hippos mouth could do to a healthy lion. Let alone one already injured and weak.

Breaching the surface, it snorted into his face, head tilting to one side. Birds fluttering above them. “Far over the horizon. Many days travel on a hippo's foot.”

“T-th – thank you!” Nuka whimpered, shriveling down into a shaky bundle. 

The hippos breath stank, and he recoiled farther from it. 

Taking stride, Nuka bolted the direction the hippo had gestured. 

How had he ended up that far away?

**Author's Note:**

> Either this will have many chapters, some of varying length, or it'll be a mostly oneshot. I'm leaning towards multi-chapter.
> 
> I've had this idea in my mind and written it many ways. I decided to write a fresh one because the old ones are from years ago.   
> More people are fond of Zira living, I'm not so keen on it. A fall from that height into water is harder to survive than being buried alive under rocks, logs, etc. Not to mention lions are crap at telling dead or alive. Most of them just took Nuka passing out as death. When the water came and moved the logs, he could have been alive. Possibly carried away. 
> 
> Also, I loathe his voice actor, so Nuka's not speaking in the voice he once had, he's hoarse and different sounding. Just to make it more pleasant for other people who know about that terrible situation and dislike his VA.


End file.
